EVs

Lucid Motors, a new electric car company, announced at a press conference today that it would begin building its manufacturing center in Casa Grande, Arizona, in 2017. Parts and supplies for the facility will come from the state of Sonora in Mexico, which borders Arizona. The company’s headquarters will likely remain in San Francisco.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said that the company… Read More

The Kickstarter campaign for the Doohan EV3 iTank three-wheeled scooter began this week. It’s brought to you by Kartik Ram, the same guy behind the Zeitgeist electric bike that debuted this spring.
Before we get into the question of whether a three-wheeled scooter really is the future, as Ram said in a phone interview, here are the details of the iTank:
Bosch motor goes from 0-28 mph in… Read More

Tesla is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, The Wall Street Journal reported, for a possible securities law breach.
What’s at issue is whether the electric vehicle company should have notified shareholders immediately following a fatal accident on May 7 that killed a Tesla Model S owner who was using Autopilot at the time of the crash.
A spokesperson… Read More

Nick Sampson, head of the startup electric vehicle company Faraday Future, spent a busy day as the title sponsor of the Faraday Future Long Beach ePrix April 2. I interviewed him standing up in the shade of a tree on a warm California afternoon before we both had to hurry off to the track where the cars would be lined up on the grid for the standing start of the Formula E race.
While he… Read More

Unlike other automakers, Tesla is headquartered in the hills of Palo Alto next to beautiful rolling hills with lush green scenery and horse crossing signs. As you can imagine, a place like this would have some of the best driving roads in the country. We were slightly disappointed that the man behind it all, Elon Musk, was out of town. But coincidentally this gave us the perfect opportunity… Read More

Created for “a series of special demonstration appearances,” this Leaf Nismo RC is a racing-based rethinking of the Leaf design and powertrain. They’ve shaved off about 40% of the weight, bringing it down to just over 2000 lbs, lowered it to have only 2.4″ of clearance, and of course switched it over to rear wheel drive.
The performance is… well, we can’t… Read More

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The Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf are enjoying lots of free publicity right now. Each of their unique approaches to cleaner mobility has drawn a lot of hype. What about the car that started it all? What’s the next step for the Toyota Prius? Read More

Although I’m excited about the Leaf and EVs in general, the launch hasn’t exactly been smooth. There have been shortages, range issues, and now some sort of bug with the AC unit that’s causing some cars to not start at all. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, or what Nissan intends to do, but the consensus seems to be “if your Leaf gives you a weird error… Read More

Audi has just announced details of another EV to be produced under their e-tron moniker in the form of the A3. The A3 e-tron is a battery electric vehicle, similar to the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Roadster. The Audi has a front mounted electric motor powered by two lithium-ion batteries, one in the middle and one in the rear, with 26.5 kWh of total energy. Total output of the A3 e-tron is just… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

Being called “America’s fourth automaker” is good for stock prices. That’s what Tesla was recently labeled in a report from Morgan Stanley and it caused their stock to shoot up nearly 20% to close at $27.75. It also doesn’t hurt that they’re projected to hit $70 by the end of the year. Read More

Road and Track is a great car magazine, but they forgot an important fact about April Fools’ Day: the date. Yesterday, March 30th, they outed some pictures of the Volt sans roof. Their post even discussed some new tech for the unsightly little thing, despite its lack of a regular size gas tank. “We’re extremely excited about the new GM-patented photovoltaic film that… Read More

Back in August of ’10 (them were the days) we posted about how an Israeli company called Better Place was testing out a system for switching out batteries in Japanese electric taxis. They drive in, get their new battery, and drive out. A good idea for fleet vehicles, we said at the time, but it would take some refinement before coming to regular cars.
Well, Better Place is taking that… Read More

Considering that only 1,500 Tesla Roadsters are out on the roads, it’s amazing they’ve been able to clock up 10 million miles since 2008. Even more impressive is that the Roadsters have collectively saved 500,000 gallons of fuel and over 5.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, while maintaining supercar performance. Read More

When Elon Musk first came to Silicon Valley he was researching advanced, highly-energy-dense super-capacitors at Stanford. Coincidentally, when speaking at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco about the future of electric vehicles Musk said, “If I were to make a prediction, I’d think there’s a good chance that it is not batteries, but super-capacitors.” Read More

Today, Ford announced their partnership with AT&T to provide wireless service for the upcoming Ford Focus Electric. AT&T transmits vehicle data — much like Audi and T-Mobile — to Ford’s cloud that owners can access via any Android, BlackBerry, or iOS smartphone or web browser. Read More

Googlers have a few motorized options for getting around the Mountain View campus: tons of unlocked bicycles and small short range EVs. When it comes to charging the latter, Google is trying out a new system that does away with cords and plugs. Read More

Porsche has decided to begin taking orders for their highly-received 918 Spyder Plug-in Hybrid. Dealers have been given the go-ahead to begin taking orders for the limited (918 units) $845,000 car. The 918 Spyder is powered by a 500-plus horsepower V8 gas engine which gets assistance from two electric motors producing an addition 218 horsepower. 0-60 times are estimated to be near 3 seconds. Read More

According to a Friday SEC filing, VIA Motors closed a $5.3 million series A investment in a deal that involved 44 angel, and friends-and-family investors. The filing reflects the potential for the company to take an additional $5 million. Carl E. Berg, a serial real estate entrepreneur and investor in electric vehicle technology, participated in the new round, and remains VIA Motors’… Read More

The Model S, is the most hyped electric car due to come out soon. Everyone is waiting to see what the Model S will feature and whether or not it’ll be worth the wait. Today, at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the Model S will support third-party apps and text-to-speech, pretty much confirming many rumors. Read More

Looks like the Fisker Karma will be delayed again. Although production supposedly began this month, with deliveries expected shortly after, we’re now hearing only VIPs will get the car by June. Everyone else will have to wait until July. Read More